The Department of Children's Services told caseworkers this month that they can no longer remove children from homes without an in-person court hearing, a process that can take days — or longer in some rural areas — and potentially leave a child being abused or neglected in dangerous homes until a judge can review the case.

Lawyers for DCS return to federal court today for a judge's review of the latest analysis of Tennessee's foster system, filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit against DCS by children's advocates. Its findings were not unexpected, according to Commissioner Jim Henry.

The Department of Children's Services said this week that it will charge an estimated $34,952 to produce public records of children who died or nearly died during the past 11 months after having some contact with the child welfare agency.

The Department of Children’s Services’ latest price estimate for obtaining records that The Tennessean and other media groups have sought for months is no more efficient or cost-effective than its two previous estimates, according to a filing submitted on Thursday by the newspaper’s attorney.

Lawyers for the Department of Children's Services say they will appeal a judge's ruling limiting how much the agency can charge the public for records of children who died or nearly died after being brought to their attention.

Davidson County Chancellor Carol McCoy on Wednesday ordered the Tennessee Department of Children's Services to provide the Tennessean and other media outlets with redacted case files of the 50 most recent cases involving 2012 fatalities or near-fatalities

Media organizations have asked Chancellor Carol McCoy to order that DCS produce computerized records in hundreds of child death cases at no cost, calling the state's cost estimates 'grossly excessive.'

The Department of Children's Services was creating new rules on how it would publicly disclose information on child deaths, but the agency put the project on hold after a media coalition filed a lawsuit seeking access to state records, a spokeswoman said this week.

Lawyers for the Department of Children's Services claim that agency files on children who died or nearly died must be transported by hand, from one location to another, in order to protect the documents' confidentiality and integrity.

The tracking of child deaths by the Department of Children's Services was again the subject of new court filings in both state and federal courts on Monday and, separately, prompted the agency to confess to mistakes it made when redacting information given to The Tennessean a month ago.

A federal judge on Friday said he has become impatient with the Tennessee Department of Children's Services' inability to accurately count child deaths and issued firm deadlines for officials to make improvements.

Two executive-level Department of Children's Services staffers — whose duties at the agency included reviewing the deaths of children — were fired Tuesday. The department offered little explanation for the action.

A Davidson County judge plans to review a sample of records of children who died after being brought to the attention of state officials and determine whether information about how their cases were handled must be made public.

Tennessee's Department of Children's Services has been trying to improve the care of children in state custody since a lawsuit filed in 2000 triggered numerous court-ordered changes.

Oct. 8, 2012

About DCS Special Report

Since September, an ongoing series by The Tennessean has uncovered numerous problems at the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, the state agency charged with investigating allegations of abuse and neglect, operating the state's foster care system and rehabilitating the state's juvenile offenders.

The department has been under federal court pressure for a decade to improve its care of children, but improvements slowed in the past two years, and child advocates say problems uncovered by The Tennessean may be endangering the department's ability to serve the state’s most vulnerable children.

They include missed calls at a child abuse hotline, a spike in violence in youth detention facilities, high turnover among senior DCS leaders and a $27 million computer system that DCS workers struggle to use to document their investigations and that led to missed payments to foster care families and agencies, and a failure to accurately report on the children in its care.

DCS also struggled to provide accurate information on the number of children who died, or nearly died, after having some contact with the agency. The agency revised those numbers upwards at least five times since September.

The Tennessean and a coalition of media groups filed suit against the agency in December after DCS repeatedly declined to provide records of children who died - ultimately winning the right to portions of each child's file.

In January, Governor Bill Haslam responded to DCS's miscounts of child deaths by appointing a special advisor to the agency, then under the leadership of Commissioner Kate O'Day.

A week later, O'Day resigned.

Since then, interim Commissioner Jim Henry, appointed by the governor, has taken steps to address the misreporting of child deaths and the glitchy computer system, brought in outside experts and reorganized the department. He has created a new internal investigation process into child deaths under orders from a federal court.

To comment on these stories or provide information, please call reporter Anita Wadhwani at 615-259-8092 or Tony Gonzalez at 615-259-8089 or reach them by email at awadhwani@tennessean.com and tgonzalez@tennessean.com.